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The History
The Hundred House Inn at Purslow is found in the depths of the Clun Valley, commonly known as "the quietest under the sun", a quote taken from poem L in 'A Shropshire Lad' by Houseman.
Purslow it has been said comes from the words - Pussa's tumulus, 'low' being the Old English word for a tumulus, a pagan burial mound - arguably suggesting very early occupation in this area of about 600 A.D. Clun itself is a British, pre-Saxon river name.
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The Domesday Survey which took place in 1086, stated that Clunbury, Kempton and Clunton lay in Rinlow Hundred. After some adjustments to boundaries and parishes this was then to become Purslow Hundred in the time of Henry I (1100-1135) and it is said that Pussa's burial mound was the marker for the assembly of the people of the hundred. That ancient arrangement is still remembered today by the Hundred House at Purslow.
There were only two houses with full licences in the parish in the nineteenth century, The Crown at Clunton and the Hundred House at Purslow. The latter of which was run for over thirty five years from about 1870 onwards by Edward Smith, and when the licence was renewed in 1901, the records report it had been in continuous use as an inn for at least 165 years. In 1905 the Earl of Powys leased the Hundred House to the People's Refreshment House Association finally selling it to them in 1926.
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In 1891 the Hundred House was also the local magistrates' court, sitting on the third Wednesday of each month at 12 noon. These court sessions finally stopped at the beginning of the 1914 - 18 War.